The Richest Man In London (not really - it's just the name of his blog) offers a free, rather caustic, guide to due diligence on crowdfunded equity investing, based on his experience with Crowdcube and Seedrs.

“VICTORY Park Capital Specialty Lending (VPC) delivered its highest ever net revenue return in October, only to see it pushed down by capital losses.

The alternative finance focused investment trust reported a monthly revenue return of 0.85 per cent, but this was offset by capital losses of 0.59 per cent, pushing its net asset value (NAV) return for October to 0.26 per cent.

Exposure to balance sheet loans continued to provide the bulk of returns, up 0.90 per cent, and equity investments returned 0.39 per cent, according to a portfolio update released on Tuesday.

However, the returns were pushed down predominantly by a 0.73 per cent decline in marketplace loans.

"Funding Circle, the UK based online lender focusing on SMEs, has topped an important milestone having surpassed £3 billion on lending since launch in 2010. Funding Circle has been rather quiet on the accomplishment beyond noting it on their UK home page where it states 30,986 UK businesses have financed their goals by borrowing £3 billion through Funding Circle via 43,300 loans from 72,000+ investors. The number that is truly important is that Funding Circle has helped to facilitate approximately 40,000 new jobs. That is where the impact is brought home for the UK economy.

According to a recent post on P2PBanking, Funding Circle claims the title of the largest peer to peer lender in the UK (and Europe for that matter) ahead of both Zopa and RateSetter. For comparison sake, Zopa originated €120.5 million in November. Funding Circle facilitated €147.7 million the same month.

Funding Circle reported a loss of £35.7m for fiscal 2016 – a slight improvement over year prior (2015: £36.9 million. Funding Circle’s UK business was cashflow positive in Q4 2016 and has continued to generate positive cashflow through the first half of 2017, according to the company.

Funding Circle operates in the UK, the US, Germany and the Netherlands with the UK being the largest part of their business."

“Government plans for a crackdown on bitcoin will be ineffective in preventing the use of the cryptocurrency for organised crime, experts said yesterday.

The Treasury intends to regulate bitcoin and other digital cryptocurrencies to bring them into line with legislation on money laundering and the funding of terrorism. However, experts said the decentralised way that bitcoin was traded around the world meant there would always be loopholes.”

“One of the fastest growing p2p companies in Europe iuvo reached 6.5M € in investments in the first 15 months of its existence. The money is invested by more than 2700 investors from over 60 countries around the globe with 15% annual return.

What is interesting to note is that this remarkable result is due to investors from different European countries, including Bulgaria, which was the test market for the company. Iuvo does not hide its ambitions for development and broader entry into European markets in 2018.

At the end of October 2018, iuvo attracted as a new partner - one of the most prominent non-banking financial institutions in Romania – iCredit with 18M € wallet. iCredit lists on the platform its main products – personal loans ranging from 85 to 1300 € with a repayment period from 3 to 15 weeks. Thanks to the partnership investors can buy loans on the platform in Romanian Leu (RON). This creates an opportunity for further portfolio diversification and idea for new strategies. At present, iuvo works with two more reliable and proven originators from Bulgaria – Easy Credit and Viva Credit*. “

The Daily News Briefing is sponsored by Money&Co. and edited by Martin Baker, Director of Content and Communications at Money&Co and Editorial Director of Another Crowd.

It is provided as a free information service, based upon fair use. Nothing in the Daily Briefing is privileged, confidential or investment advice.